Emergency Unit Makes Water From Air

Aqua Sciences has developed an emergency water station unit that produces high-quality water for human consumption.

by Monique Ching, McClatchy News Service
/
April 24, 2014

It is said you can’t produce things out of thin air, but some experts have been producing water from it for 10 years.

“The key point is, we can make water virtually anywhere,” said David Murphy, chief operating officer at Aqua Sciences, Inc. “And it’s good water.”

Aqua Sciences is one of many vendors in San Angelo this week for the West Texas County Judges’ and Commissioners’ Association Conference. The company moved one of its 40-foot emergency water station units — a converted shipping container — into the McNease Convention Center parking lot to show officials and serve water.

“This was owned by Sabine Pass” after Hurricane Ike, Murphy said Wednesday.

The 40-foot unit is capable of producing up to 30,000 gallons of water per day, Murphy said, but models can be smaller or larger. The company is developing microwave-size units that can produce several gallons per day for a household.

“It’s water for human consumption,” Murphy said. “The quality of this water is far better than drinking regulations.”

Aqua Sciences, which has worked with the Army and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide water in places ranging from Saudi Arabia to Haiti, designs the units as emergency solutions, Murphy said.

“We’re not the silver bullet. We are clear about that,” Murphy said. “We can provide a solution of acute drinking problems.”

Aqua Sciences brought the unit to the San Angelo conference for the perusal of West Texas officials.

“We understand Texas has some severe water problems,” Murphy said.

Such emergency water stations can be customized to fit a community’s needs, he said. The Sabine Pass unit, Murphy said, is capable of running off an electric grid, but it also has two diesel generators and a thousand gallon fuel tank for disaster situations in which there is no grid electricity.

Running the unit through a grid would put water costs at about 17 cents per gallon.

“It’s definitely less than bottled water,” he said. “There are a lot of ways to get the cost down.”

Large units such as the one on display Wednesday typically last about 15 years with the proper maintenance, Murphy said.

A 40-foot generator like the one from Sabine Pass would cost about $750,000 to $900,000, he said.

It also would cost about $37,500 to $45,000 per year for Aqua Sciences technicians to perform regular maintenance.

The cost would go down if the owner decided to use local HVAC contractors for routine maintenance.

The good thing about such a mobile unit, Murphy said, is that it can be shared by communities in emergencies and stored for months before it’s used. Communities could lease it out if they weren’t using it.

“There’s lots of ways to skin this cat,” he said. “You’re not married to it like a pipeline.”

HOW IT WORKS

While atmospheric water generation is not new, Murphy said the Florida-based Aqua Sciences uses a proprietary technology that is different from most other such technologies.